Affliction Warlock Mistakes and How to Improve - Battle for Azeroth 8.1

Problems Intro\rWelcome to Wowhead's Affliction Warlock Problems page for Tides of Vengeance, Battle for Azeroth Season 2! This page will walk you through common problems, pitfalls, and places to improve your gameplay in order to maintain a competitive edge. Many of the topics covered are based on the Affliction Warlock rotations, so make sure you familiarize yourself with that information to get the most out of this guide.\r\rMany topics covered in this page are based on log analysis, using WarcraftLogs. If you are not familiar with it, make sure to check our guide about how to use it.\r\r\rOur guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on View Changelog at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Affliction Warlock information in Tides of Vengeance, Battle for Azeroth's first content patch, make sure to browse the Navigation Bar below, and our list of Related Guides just beneath the Table of Contents.\r\rWould you like to quickly find this guide using Discord? You can do it easily using Jeeves Bot! Click here to add Jeeves to your Discord server.\r\r\r\rOverview\rQuick Start\rAzerite\rTalent Builds\rRotation, Priority, and Abilities\rAdvanced Concepts\rStats\rGear\rConsumables\rSimulations\rCorrecting Mistakes\rMythic+\rNEW Raid & Dazar'alor Tips\rMacros & Addons\rWeakAuras\rCommon Terms\r\r\r\rAbout the Author\rAbout the Author\rThis guide was written by Xyronic. You can check out my twitch page where I frequently stream anything to do with WoW. If you have any questions, it's best to PM me on discord @Xyronic#3576.\r\r\r\r\r Common mistakes and how to fix them \r\r\r\r Not Properly using Summon Darkglare\r\rCheck out the rotation guide for a more in-depth description of how to use this spell. Summon Darkglare is pretty much the best 3 minute cooldown in the game at the moment - used properly, it essentially gives you the equivalent damage of 5 free Unstable Afflictions, half of a phantom singularity, and a few gcds in which you would have refreshed your other DoTs. Improper usage can result in hundreds of thousands of damage lost.\r\r\r\r Not properly refreshing DoTs\r\rFirst, refreshing DoTs too often. As warlocks, we play around pandemic timers, meaning that any time a DoT is below 30% of its max duration, you're free to recast it for full benefit. Aim to do this all the time. If you're ever refreshing your DoTs above this duration, you're costing yourself duration on already casted DoTs.\rSecond, and a little more obvious, refreshing your DoTs too late. Affliction is a DoT based class, so any time your DoTs are not on the target is wasted damage. Don't ever let your DoTs fall off.\r\rThird, use your Soul Shards for Unstable Affliction appropriately. You're aiming for an uptime playstyle, trying to get the most out of Unstable Affliction's baked in Contagion effect. However, the playstyle changes a little bit around Darkglare. Make sure your Soul Shards are pooled for that cooldown. \r\r\r\r Not Properly using Deathbolt\r\rDeathbolt is a relatively simple spell to use, but used improperly can cause a significant damage loss over the course of a fight. Deathbolt has 2 usage cases.\rFirst, when Darkglare is available. Your goal is to cast as many Unstable Afflictions and your Phantom Singularity before casting your Summon Darkglare, IMMEDIATELY followed by Deathbolt. Even casting it one GCD later is a large damage loss.\rAny other time, you want to hit Deathbolt as close to cooldown as possible. Thus, your goal is to plan a few steps ahead to maximize Deathbolt damage. Have at least one Unstable affliction applied and have DoTs that aren't short duration.\r\r\r\r Not filling every GCD with something\r\rThis is a general rule to the game, but a good rule to follow for anyone that somehow hasn't heard it at this point. ALWAYS BE CASTING SOMETHING. If at any point you aren't casting something, you're losing potential damage. Even if it isn't necessarily the correct spell, it's better to do some damage than none.\r\r\r\r Planning movement\r\rThis sort of goes hand in hand with filling every GCD - plan out your movement for the duration of the current fight you're in. If large movement is needed, have your personal portal or a Demonic Gateway ready for that. If small movements are needed, make them during your instant cast abilities so you don't lose out on damage by having to move when you could be casting other abilities.\r\r\r\r\r\r General Log Analysis \r\rAffliction is, for the most part, a very straightforward spec to play. Debuff uptime is paramount, and the only real wildcard comes from planning Deathbolts. Most of log analysis comes down to hitting your cooldowns as close to cooldown as possible, or based on the fight, delaying them for certain points in the fight. On the other end of the spectrum, logs are great for determining what went wrong in an encounter leading to your or another's death.\r\r\r\r Cooldown usage\r\rDid you properly use your cooldowns during this fight? Example - if a fight is 4 minutes long, it's definitely better to use your Dark Soul:Misery in conjunction with your second Summon Darkglare, instead of just hitting it on cooldown. Another thing to look out for is the number of possible casts in a fight versus how many you cast. If a fight lasts 4:25, and you didn't cast 9 Deathbolts, something is probably wrong. Go back and check where you delayed abilities so you can focus on fixing that issue.\r\r\r\r Debuff Uptime\r\rGod forbid you play Affliction and you let your DoTs drop, but you always want to check this metric if they're dropping at all. You can look at events in the fight at the same time as your DoTs dropping and find out what led you through that situation, and recognize what steps you need to make to fix that.\r\r\r\r Death Logs\r\rHow did you die in this situation? If it was a one-shot, did you have Unending Resolve available? If you rotted to death, could you have used a Healthstone, casted Drain Life, or called for an external? \r\r\r\r\rProblems Footer\rPrevious Page:\rConsumables\rNext Page:\rMythic+\r\r\r\r\r\rFeedback\r\rThanks for reading our class guides! If you have any feedback about the guides, feel free to leave a comment in the section below and we will reply as quickly as possible. If you'd like to talk with any of our writers directly you can do so by joining our Discord Server and finding them there!

Comments

Comment by Zythor

At this point (level 116) This classes weakness still feels insurmountable, I am left with little choice but to recommend you stay away from this spec.The mere fact that for the first time ever (that I've noticed) a correcting mistakes section is needed in a spec guide, pretty much tells us this spec is garbage at this point. Not only are the spells incredibly lackluster, after the opening sequence the rotation/priority que turns into a complete cluster....All you need to do is look at the comments underneath the rotation section and you will see the total lack of detailed responses to come to the conclusion even Hard core locks are having difficulty straightening out the mess that is affliction.